James Donald CAMERON

(1833-1918)

Senate Years of Service:

1877-1897

Party:

Republican

CAMERON, James Donald,
(son of Simon Cameron), a Senator from Pennsylvania; born in
Middletown, Dauphin County, Pa., May 14, 1833; graduated from
Princeton College in 1852, and received a graduate degree in 1855;
bank clerk and cashier; president of the Northern Central Railway
Co. of Pennsylvania 1866-1874; Secretary of War in the Cabinet of
President Ulysses Grant 1876-1877; chairman of the Republican
National Committee in 1880; elected as a Republican to the United
States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of his
father, Simon Cameron, March 5, 1877; reelected in 1879, 1885, and
1890, and served from March 20, 1877, to March 3, 1897; chairman,
Committee on Naval Affairs (Forty-seventh through Fifty-second and
Fifty-fourth Congresses), Committee on Revolutionary Claims
(Fifty-third Congress); was not a candidate for reelection; engaged
in several business enterprises in Harrisburg, Pa.; died at his
country home, ‘Donegal,’ in Lancaster County, Pa.,
August 30, 1918; interment in the Harrisburg Cemetery, Harrisburg,
Pa.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American
Biography; Harrison, Robert. “Blaine and the Camerons: A
Study in the Limits of Machine Power.” Pennsylvania
History 49 (July 1982): 157-75.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present